BOAT
WORKS
F
rom the moment we left the mooring I
knew what was wrong. The boat had sat,
hardly used, for nearly a month; now, as I
opened the throttle, the engine note changed to
a complaining rattle, black smoke belched from
the exhaust, and the boat moved reluctantly off
as if tethered to the bottom by an elastic band.
From past experience, I knew the propeller was
covered in barnacles. The only bright note was
that it was late October and we were taking
the boat to be hauled out, so there would beno plunging into frigid New England waters to
scrape the growth off the prop.
The problem of keeping your prop barnacle-
free is by no means restricted to the Northeast.
From the Florida Keys to the Bering Strait,
those pesky arthropods alight gleefully upon
your running gear and settle down for the
long haul. And in another example of life’s
little injustices, they affect us sailors more than
they do powerboaters. The more you use your
engine, the less likely you are to have your propcolonized by barnacles.
Having been plagued by barnacles and other
intrusive organisms for generations, the sailing
community has brought the full breadth of
its considerable inventiveness to bear on this
sticky problem. You’ll hear barroom tales of the
efficacy of potions of waterproof grease mixed
with cayenne pepper, tetracycline and even
quinine powder; some swear that rubbing a
black magic marker onto the propeller blades
keeps growth away; and others hold forth aboutFOULDEEDS
How do you keep
barnacles off your
propeller? Let us
count the ways
By Peter Nielsen
MAINTENANCE
Somewhere under those
barnacles is a shiny
folding propeller64APRIL 2015 PHOTOS BY PETER NIELSEN